Everyone wants to win their March Madness pool. But it’s important to remember that college basketball looks different in 2026. It makes sense to pick high-probability events in your bracket.
There is no shortage of analytics resources out there, like the ubiquitous Ken Pomeroy. At my site, The Power Rank, the higher-ranked team in my pre-tournament college basketball team rankings has won 70.9% of tournament games in the last 23 tournaments.
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Even with all of the resources now available, it’s critical that you employ proper strategy when filling out your bracket, depending on the size of your pool. Sometimes going contrarian is the way to go. Let me explain.
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Using chalk for smaller pools
To explain the two different strategies you might use, let’s use the 2019 NCAA tournament as an example.
Duke dominated the college basketball landscape in 2019. Mike Krzyzewski’s team featured Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett, two players who would both get drafted in the top three picks of the NBA Draft.
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Duke’s results before the tournament also earned them the top spot in my college basketball team rankings at The Power Rank. With the easy approach of picking the higher-ranked team in each game, you get Duke as your champion in 2019.
I called this the favorites strategy in my book How To Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool, and it will get you the most expected points in your pool. By my numbers, Duke had a 34% chance to win the tournament, the largest of any teams. For small pools, this is the optimal strategy.
However, you can increase your chance to win a medium-sized pool with another strategy.
How to be contrarian in larger pools
To see this, let’s assume that you’re in a 50-person pool. Based on the public pick distribution tab from Yahoo Sports’ Bracket Mayhem, which has data on millions of brackets, 30% of brackets picked Duke as champion. This means about 15 people pick Duke in your pool.
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If Duke wins, then you and 15 other people get those 32 points for picking the champion, which is the most important choice in your bracket. With so many people in contention, it’s likely that one of those people is going to make some outrageous choices in earlier rounds and beat you.
Instead, you want to make a contrarian choice and pick against the favorite Duke. You find a team with a high win probability but that isn’t getting picked by others in your pool.
In 2019, the contrarian choice was Virginia. Tony Bennett’s team featured future pros De’Andre Hunter and Ty Jerome. However, they stood in the shadow of ACC rival Duke, losing both games to them in the regular season.
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Based on the data, only 8% of brackets picked Virginia as champion. One factor was that Virginia had lost to 16-seed UMBC in Round 1 of the 2018 NCAA tournament — the first No. 1 seed to lose to a 16-seed in men’s tournament history.
My college basketball numbers gave Virginia a 22% chance to win the NCAA tournament. Note the large difference between Virginia’s win probability and the 8% of brackets picked by people in pools.
Think back to the 50-person pool. Only four people will pick Virginia as champion. If Virginia wins, then you and only four other people have the correct champion. Your solid chalky choices in the previous rounds should be good enough to secure the victory.
The contrarian strategy worked in 2019, as Virginia won the NCAA tournament.
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Two finer points about the contrarian strategy
Let’s discuss two key items about the favorites versus contrarian strategy.
First, the contrarian strategy works best with a large gap between a team’s win probability and the fraction of brackets that pick them as champion. In 2019, the gap for Virginia was about 14%. From simulation results, I estimate that the contrarian starts to beat the favorites strategy for pools with 20 or more people.
[Bracket Mayhem 101: How to use experts picks to fill out your bracket]
With a smaller gap, your win probability with the favorites and contrarian strategies can be comparable for pool sizes up to 100. No matter the gap, I recommend submitting multiple brackets that use both strategies.
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Second, you can also go beyond the data on which team people pick as champion. Common sense works, too.
As an example in 2026, let’s suppose you’re in a pool based in Ann Arbor. It is safe to assume that a large fraction of people will pick Michigan as champion with how the Wolverines have played this season. The same thinking works for pools heavy with alums from title contenders like Duke and Arizona.
Pool strategy in 2026
The 2026 NCAA tournament will be a particularly interesting year to apply the favorites-versus-contrarian strategies.
Looking at the futures market at BetMGM, Michigan and Duke are the favorites to win this year’s tournament. I expect these teams to have the highest pick percentage as champion, something you can check on Yahoo as you fill out your bracket.
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The top teams in college basketball have been historically good this season. In my team rankings that take margin of victory and adjust for strength of schedule, Arizona, Michigan and Duke all rate 23 points better than the average Division I team. This is close to the rating Florida entered the tournament with last season, but much higher than the 20 points of the top teams in previous years.
[Best bets on every NCAA tournament game]
In addition, Duke and Michigan are also similar in that both will miss key point guards in the tournament. Caleb Foster has stayed with the Duke program for three seasons and finally earned a starting role this season. He had surgery for a broken foot and almost certainly will miss all of the tournament.
L.J. Cason didn’t start for Michigan but could easily make the case as the best point guard ahead of Elliott Cadeau. Cason will be out the rest of the season after an ACL tear sustained against Illinois.
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One team with contrarian value might be Arizona, even as a No. 1 seed. The Wildcats didn’t come into the season with championship expectations, as they ranked 13th in the preseason AP poll. However, the Wildcats have excelled on both ends of the floor and actually rank ahead of Michigan and Duke in my college basketball team rankings.
Ed Feng runs The Power Rank, an analytics site devoted to sports betting.
